Remembering reunions

Past, she sees him as a sequence

Of long, loping movements – half graceful

Then abrupt: a stutter

Of glances, fearful

Querying, tentatively tender

She knows him as a native

Bushland animal – touch-shy, muted

Tawny grey and soft

A possum

Dangling from a gum-tree

Securely attached and by night

Alert, its eyes

Its nightsky-padded paws

An untamed living question

Small:harmless:gentle

 

Marsupial

In darkness, in depth and in warmth

A kangaroo heart-pulse – an inch-long

Moist, ghostly pink

Blind embryo, striving

Clinging, swollen – her own

Bloodless like rose-quartz or a

Shaft of ice

 

As an animal startled

Scared by sudden light

Undergrowth creature

A scrubland dweller

A species protected

Defensive

And only rarely sighted

Approaching quietly

She hopes to see him soon